If Home Is Where the Heart Is
by OstentatiousEloquence
Summary: AU. Dragons and dragonmen belong in the Weyrs; that's simply the way it is... So what happens when four exiled riders have to make it on their own?


**Disclaimer**: I don't own Pern, Anne McCaffrey doesn't own my characters, and you don't own any of it! Let's all of us play nicely, now.

**A/N**: This story is the somewhat rushed result of some spontaneous inspiration a few days ago, and who am I to resist? There are parts of this that I'm not much a fan of - there are two big infodumps that read somewhat awkwardly - but they seemed necessary to start the story out, and there should be less of that later. This first chapter seems shortish, but I'm not going to promise longer chapters in the future, because I'm not entirely sure _that's_ a promise I can keep! Either way, I hope you enjoy the story, and I'm happy to get reviews with concrit and praise alike :)

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"Shards shells and scorch it, Zon!" F'ray cried, clenching his fists and slamming one against the ground. His handsome face was contorted in furious pain, his long golden hair pressed sweatily to his cheek. "Be _gentle_!"

N'zon, hunched over him, snapped back, "Well I'm _trying_, but I'm not a Healer!" His hands, as thin and bony as the rest of him, flitted nervously over the oozing wound that had ripped from F'ray's right shoulder, across his back to his left hip. "Maybe if you'd been a little more careful –"

"Well, did you want dinner or not, you wherry? _Shards_!"

"_That _time it was your fault! Stop squirming!"

"Riders, I give you our fearless leader," L'den chimed in sardonically, his deep voice rich with amusement as he gestured at F'ray, who was sprawled on his stomach and stripped to his waist, sticky with sweat and blood. L'den was lounging against his blue dragon's side, his ankles crossed over each other as he propped his boots up on a rock and sipped some wine they'd purloined from Benden Hold the previous day.

F'ray burst into a string of invective so potent that L'den laughed uproariously and N'zon sat back on his haunches, brushing his thin brown hair out of his face and crying frustratedly, "F'ray! You need to keep _still_!"

"Fine! T'skiv, go kill the little tunnelsnake so I don't have to!"

T'skiv, who had been bent over their dinner pot, poking at it anxiously with a long wooden spoon, looked up. "Your dinner might burn."

"Oh, scorch it all!" said F'ray gustily, rolling his muscular shoulders so that N'zon flung his hands up in the air with an exasperated shriek. "You're lucky I'm wounded, Den, you little tail-fork."

"I am unworthy, O Merciful One," the bluerider returned sarcastically, taking a deeper swig of the Benden wine. "Gah, Skiv, couldn't you have nabbed something a little sweeter than this swill?"

"You're lucky I got that much," the greenrider replied seriously. "I almost elbowed V'dayben in the ribs on my way out. If Avinath hadn't warned me he was coming just in time, I'd've been caught for sure. Then you wouldn't have been able to get drunk at _all_."

"Bah," L'den said, gesturing dismissively. "I'm not sure this stuff can even do the trick."

N'zon, who was bent tersely over a finally-still F'ray, tried and failed to muffle a snort.

"What's that, brownrider?" L'den demanded, brandishing the wineskin threateningly at N'zon. "Got something funny to share?"

"Layvath tells me Soveth thinks this is the finest wine you've tasted in five Turns," N'zon informed him amusedly. "F'_ray_…!"

"Ah, L'den, you lying little wherry-face," F'ray said with relish, attempting to prop himself up on his elbows. N'zon grabbed him forcefully by the back of the neck and shoved him back to the ground. "_Zon_!"

The four riders seemed an unlikely group to be camping out in the middle of the forests of the Northern Continent. F'ray, bronze Telvinth's rider, was a boisterous and outgoing lecher, of the effortlessly handsome variety, with shaggy blond hair and fine gray eyes that he took shameless advantage of. He never passed up a bet or a glass of wine, and he had a hot temper that had led him to be an excellent fighter.

T'skiv, his closest friend, was his polar opposite in every way. Short and slender, but strong, green Avinath's rider had wavy, dark-brown hair and serious green eyes. He said little but watched everyone, and his quiet nature and unfaltering trustworthiness made him everyone's confidant. He had Impressed green his first time on the Sands, but no one could tell if he was a man-lover or a woman-lover. He behaved normally during Avinath's mating flights, but he never took a weyrmate, although he was handsome – indeed, almost beautiful – enough that anyone would have been happy to have him.

N'zon was tall and skinny, with light brown hair and a long, thin nose. He was as pedantic and prim as F'ray was fun-loving and rowdy; before he had Impressed, he had worked in the Archives, and he never let the group forget that he was far their intellectual superior. But beneath his scholarly and prissy exterior, he was a brave and loyal rider, and, unexpectedly, he was best friends with L'den.

L'den was a short and stocky bluerider, with thick black hair and piercing blue eyes, and as corrosively sarcastic a sense of humor as ever there was. Though a perpetual cynic, he was rarely as pessimistic as he let on. A heavy drinker and as bawdy as F'ray, he drove N'zon crazy on nearly a daily basis, but their friendship ran deep, and he privately respected N'zon a great deal.

"_There_!" N'zon finally gasped out, yanking at the bandages he had finally finished applying. "We're _done_!"

"_Took_ you long enough," F'ray said grumpily, gingerly pushing himself up into a sitting position.

"Well if you understood the idea of being _still_ –"

"Dinner's ready," T'skiv cut across them smoothly, pulling out their four wooden bowls and scooping stew into them. "It smells foul but it's probably edible."

"About time!" said L'den, leaping to his feet (and swaying a little under the wine's influence). "I could eat Sovvie, I'm so starved."

The dragon lifted his head off his forepaws, amused. _Please do not_.

"Don't worry about it, kid," L'den assured him, swatting at his soft blue nose affectionately. "You'd taste awful." Soveth snorted indignantly, huffing warm air in his rider's face. Laughing, L'den trotted over to the fire.

N'zon had looped an arm under F'ray's armpits and was helping him come over as well, despite the bronzerider's loud declarations that he was perfectly capable of walking on his own, thank you very much.

"You'd collapse in a heap the second you tried to take a step," N'zon said irritably as F'ray thrashed his arms about in an attempt to free himself. "You've been wailing and bleeding for candlemarks now!"

"It's just a scratch! Telvinth, tell Layvath to get this Threadspore off me!"

"Layvath doesn't take orders from Telvinth, and I don't take orders from Layvath!"

"Here!" T'skiv grabbed F'ray's flailing wrist and thrust a bowl of soup into his hand. "Eat!"

N'zon dumped the injured man unceremoniously onto the ground, and F'ray made a muffled squeaking noise before digging hungrily into his supper. Tossing his hair out of his eyes, N'zon sighed exhaustedly and looked at T'skiv, who shrugged with a rueful smile. "Have some stew," he said, offering the brownrider a bowl.

"Thanks, T'skiv," N'zon said, taking his bowl and stalking pointedly to the other side of the fire to eat. F'ray grinned after him through his mouthful of stew.

"Mfgrumrin, N'on!" he said triumphantly.

"Swallow your food, F'ray!"

"If you could _call_ this food," L'den interjected, screwing up his face as he ingested another mouthful. "We need a woman to go rogue with us so we can get some decent cooking around here."

"It was _your _turn to make dinner, L'den," N'zon pointed out superciliously. "_You _were the one who delegated the task to T'skiv."

"Well, he's better than me, and he's a far sight better than either of you," L'den returned. "Doesn't make him any good, though."

With a sigh, N'zon gave up on him, and gestured for T'skiv to dish himself up and sit beside the brownrider. "Ignore him," N'zon said primly. "You did an admirable job with the stew." Shooting a glare at L'den, N'zon raised his own spoon to his mouth and took a tiny sip. Squeezing his eyes shut, he swallowed. "Ah – yes. It's, um – it's very good, T'skiv."

"The wherry was a little tough," T'skiv explained apologetically, sitting down beside N'zon. "And I wasn't exactly sure what herbs I was putting in. The tubers might have been rotten."

"Seems like it," F'ray agreed shamelessly, without ceasing to shovel the slop into his mouth. Crinkling up his nose at the bronzerider, N'zon took his own dainty sips, visibly struggling to control his facial expression after each.

Silence fell over the group as they painfully ingested T'skiv's poor attempt at a meal. No one was foolish enough to bring up the warm, delicious dinners the Weyrs served night after night, with steaming herdbeast roasts and soft, delicately spiced tubers.

It had been two Turns since F'ray and T'skiv had left the comfort of Igen Weyr. As T'skiv hunched over his foul-tasting stew, his mind whispered traitorously that there was nothing keeping him here – there was nothing stopping him from hopping on Avinath's neck and taking her _between_, back to Igen, back to _home_, where there were soft beds and wonderful meals, three times a day, and there was _klah_, and there were bathing pools with warm water…

But there _was_ something keeping him here; it was F'ray. T'skiv would have followed his friend into the depths of _between_ if F'ray had asked, and into the woods had been even more automatic. The two had grown up together in the Lower Caverns of Igen Weyr, and had been inseparable from the age of six. When F'ray had been exiled, there had been no question in T'skiv's mind that he had to follow.

His eyes wandered around the group meditatively. After a Turn of flying around Pern restlessly, living off the land and avoiding the notice of Holders and Weyrfolk, they had come across N'zon and L'den, camped together with Layvath and Soveth curled around their campsite protectively. Out of curiosity, F'ray and T'skiv had landed, and from that day forward, they were a group. F'ray and T'skiv had never asked why N'zon and L'den had left the Weyrs, and neither had they been asked. Sometimes T'skiv wondered, but out here, it really didn't matter.

Sometimes, it seemed like not much of anything mattered around here.

"Shells, I'm exhausted," F'ray declared, tossing down his bowl and spoon. "Telvinth!" The bronze's rumble rolled sleepily across the campsite in answer. "Come and get me! N'zon makes an awful crutch."

N'zon's screeches of indignance rent the cooling night air, and L'den chuckled richly, also tossing down his bowl. "Thanks, Skiv," he said quietly as the bronze- and brownrider squabbled. "It was awful, but you're great for doing all the cooking."

T'skiv nodded graciously as F'ray hooked his arm over Telvinth's neck, using the dragon to pull himself to his feet. "Aggghhh," he groaned, grimacing in pain. "It's just a scratch, but _shells_ does it sting!"

"If I could _find_ numbweed, I would give it to you!" N'zon retorted sourly.

While N'zon followed F'ray over to a comfortable spot to lay out his bedding, fussing and arguing with him all the while, L'den halfheartedly helped T'skiv clean up, and then trotted over to Soveth to retrieve his wineskin and quietly drink himself into a stupor.

_Avinath, _T'skiv said silently, _do you know why L'den left his Weyr?_

_No, _she replied sleepily, and he could see her greeny-blue eyes whirling gently through the darkness. _Soveth does not talk about it. Come over here now, and sleep. It is late. You are tired._

That night, the stars and moons rained down a gentle silvery light over four dragons and their riders curled up in the night, all of them lost in fitful dreams of home and loves long gone.


End file.
